Translating the Bible

My friend Rick linked to an article by Kevin DeYoung about why his church switched to the English Standard Version (ESV) of the Bible. Throughout the article, he compared the ESV with the once-ubiquitous (in the evangelical world) NIV. As you may know, the ESV follows the translation philosophy called “formal equivalence,” the same as the King James, RSV, and NASB. In fact, the ESV is itself a revision of the RSV text. The goal is, as much as possible, to preserve the original order of words from the original manuscripts. The NIV uses the “dynamic equivalence” philosophy, which goes thought for thought.

DeYoung argued for the formal equivalence philosophy, arguing that it allowed the reader more access to the original. A comment on Rick’s post linked to an article by the commenter, which made some interesting points as well. One point that he made was that the ESV preserved “archaic words”:

When was the last time you heard anyone use any of the following words in everyday conversation: manslayer, beloved, behold, kindred, O, abhor, abide, abode, adjure, ascribe, chide, confute, convocation, counsel (as both a noun and a verb), entreat, exult, festal, haughty, invoke, kin, ordain, portent, rail (as a verb), rend, revile, sated, shall, smitten, sojourn, stripes, or swaddling?[16] The average person simply does not speak this way anymore. This is “Christianese.” If you have heard these words, chances are it was in a church setting or on Christian radio. Translations should make the meaning of God’s Word clear. God ordained that the NT would be written in Koine, i.e. common Greek. I submit that the ESV is not Koine English.

As Allan Chapple has written, “Something more substantial than style or taste is at stake here, therefore. In my judgment, unacceptable consequences flow from the ESV’s choice of language. In practice, it is an elitist translation. As such, it may well be ‘user-friendly’ for the highly literate. It may also be preferred by older Christians, for whom it will satisfy any lingering nostalgia for the RSV. But I doubt that it will be easily understood by believers under thirty-five or so, especially if they come from an unchurched background and have not already been enculturated into ‘church-speak’. If they have to use the ESV regularly, such people will need to learn two ‘languages’: the great words that speak of who God is and what he has done for us—and ‘high-English’ or ‘olde-English’. They will be glad to learn the first; they should not need to learn the second.”[17] I think Chapple overstates his case, but there is truth in his words.

This would seem to be an important consideration, but I’m not convinced by his point. To me, it would turn on what level of writing the koine was. Did it have difficult words as well? Would dropping the “church-speak” water down the translation too much?

I don’t know much about translation, so I’m curious to know what others think. Also, what philosophies do Catholic and Orthodox translations tend to take, or are there are diversity of those as well?

You can find links to DeYoung’s and the commenter’s articles at Rick’s blog post that I linked to above.

Liberal theology vs. biblical Christianity

Kevin DeYoung passed on some defining characteristics of liberal theology, along with representative quotes from volume 1 of Gary Dorrien’s The Making of American Liberal Theology.

Joseph D’Souza on the caste system

Kevin DeYoung posted his friend Jason Carter’s thoughts about the Lausanne Congress here.  Here’s one part that grabbed my attention:

Perhaps the strongest prophetic voice issuing from Cape Town came from Dr. Joseph D’Souza from India when he spoke out against the Indian Caste System as (a form of modern) slavery in its subjugation of 250 million Dalit peoples.  D’Souza made the point that if apartheid was wrong, then so too the Caste System:  “25% of India’s population —  250 million people — has no rights, dehumanized, segregated, and silently enduring an apartheid system in India. We, of course, in India hang our heads in shame…”  D’Souza stated that there are more slaves in our world today than when William Wilberforce fought the Transatlantic slave trade and closed his rousing and prophetic message by calling forth the involvement of the global church:   “I am here to say to you here at Cape Town that nothing but the concerted opinion and involvement of the global church will bring down human civilization’s longest lasting slave system.”

I think that D’Souza’s eight minutes on the Lausanne platform, 20 years from now, might be one of the defining hallmarks of Lausanne III if the global church – working with Dalit Christians – manages to prophetically speak out and live out Christ’s transforming power in the midst of this (unbelievably) large-scale injustice, reconstituting Indian society from the bottom-up for the glory of Christ.

The link in the quote goes to D’Souza’s speech.

He says that the Dalits (Untouchables) have four pleas for the church:

1. Free our children from socialization into inferiority and vulnerable to abuse and discrimination.
2. Free our women from sexual predation.
3. Be a voice.
4. Bring the alternative community that Jesus promised, the church in which there is no discrimination.

Notice that in the first two points he gives examples of Dalits who saw redemption in their lives.

The BBC story that he referred to, about the Catholic graveyard with a wall between Dalit and non-Dalit graves, is here.  That’s the kind of stark image that can really symbolize injustice, like the separate Bibles for swearing in witnesses in the Jim Crow South.  Wikipedia’s article on caste and Christianity has more information.

Lord, move in the hearts and lives of your people everywhere to build your church into the community that you desire.

The origins of “Let go and let God”

Kevin DeYoung turns his blog over to Andy Naselli for a day to explain and critique the Keswick view of sanctification.

Regret vs. repentance

Kevin DeYoung, looking at 2 Corinthians 7:

There is an eternal difference between regret and repentance.  Regret feels bad about past sins.  Repentance turns away from past sins. Most of us are content with regret.  We just want to feel bad for awhile, have a good cry, enjoy the cathartic experience, bewail our sin and how selfish/stupid/sorry we are.  But we don’t really want to change.  We don’t really want to live different than we have been.

Godly grief produces true repentance, which leads to salvation (v. 10). Instead of obsessing over regrets and feeling bad due to the opinions of others, godly grief mourns for sin, turns from sin, and finds forgiveness for sin in Christ.

Here’s one way to distinguish between worldly grief and godly grief: one mobilizes you into action and the other immobilizes you. Godly grief is a fruitful and effective emotion.  We are not meant to wallow in this grief.  It is supposed to spur us to action, to change, to make right our wrongs, to be zealous for good works, to run from sin and start walking in the opposite direction.

But worldly grief makes you idle and stagnant.  You don’t change.  You don’t grow.  You don’t fight against the deeds of the flesh.  Instead you ruminate on your mistakes and obsess about what people’s opinions and ponder what might have been.  If you feel sorry for your sin you will be moved to action not to wallow in it week after week, year after year.  Do you want to feel bad or do you want to change?

Some of us, truth be told, would rather feel bad. It’s easier than being changed.

The first part of his look at this passage is here.

Relating to the world around us

Kevin DeYoung offers a review and critique of David Platt’s Radical: Taking Back Your Faith from the American Dream, and includes a response by Platt.  Their interchange explores the motivations and manifestations of Christian responsibility to the poor.

Evangelistic churches have evangelistic people

Kevin DeYoung linked to this article by Thom Rainer of Lifeway Christian Resources.  Rainer believes that the best evangelistic method for churches is to have people who share the gospel.  Here are the characteristics of effective evangelists, according to Rainer (DeYoung quotes this list in his post too):

1. They are people of prayer. They realize that only God can convict and convert, and they are totally dependent upon Him in prayer. Most of the highly evangelistic Christians spend at least an hour in prayer each day.

2. They have a theology that compels them to evangelize. They believe in the urgency of the gospel message. They believe that Christ is the only way of salvation. They believe that anyone without Christ is doomed for a literal hell.

3. They are people who spend time in the Word. The more time they spend in the Bible, the more likely they are to see the lostness of humanity and the love of God in Christ to save those who are lost.

4. They are compassionate people. Their hearts break for those who don’t have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. They have learned to love the world by becoming more like Christ who has the greatest love for the world.

5. They love the communities where God has placed them. They are immersed in the culture because they desire for the light of Christ to shine through them in their communities.

6. They are intentional about evangelism. They pray for opportunities to share the gospel. They look for those opportunities. And they see many so-called casual encounters as appointments set by God.

7. They are accountable to someone for their evangelistic activities. They know that many good activities can replace Great Commission activities if they are not careful. Good can replace the best. So they make certain that someone holds them accountable each week, either formally or informally, for their evangelistic efforts.

This is an area of great weakness for me.  Rainer’s list is a good way to see where I need to be stronger.

Church and Kingdom

Kevin DeYoung has noted before that people talk a lot about the Kingdom of God, but don’t always have a fully biblical view of this issue.  Last week, he posted some thoughts on this issue, cautioning people who want to bring the kingdom to earth.  DeYoung argues instead that the kingdom is closely identified with the Church:

If the kingdom of God is heaven breaking into earth, Eden being replanted, the New Jerusalem nailing in stakes, then we should expect to see the kingdom almost exclusively in the church. Of course, the church, living in the world, ought to embody the principles of the kingdom. Likewise, we will be pleased when the world around us reflects many of the values of the kingdom–forgiveness, compassion, mercy, and justice. But we will not expect the world, in this life, to become the kingdom.

Here’s the problem: when people talk broadly about bringing heaven down to earth on the culture writ large, they can’t help but be selective about the nature of the kingdom. So some Christians will argue for dismantling of nuclear weapons because in the kingdom swords are beaten into plowshares. True, but in the kingdom everyone also sits under their own vine and fig tree. The vision of the kingdom/garden/city is one of extravagant opulence and prosperity. So should we try to be as rich as possible as a sign of the kingdom’s in-breaking? Well, no because the kingdom is not the full reality yet. As a result we must temper the notion of kingdom-living prosperity with the reality that some people don’t have enough to live. In the same way, we must temper the notion of kingdom-living pacifism with the reality that there are lots of bad guys in the world who don’t want us to live.

In other words, when we think of the kingdom as what we are trying to build in this world we will be severely disappointed, potentially dangerous. But when we see the church as the presence of the kingdom in this world then the theological pieces start falling into place. The oversight in some recent conceptions of building the kingdom is that the kingdom is only thought of in terms of social services. But where Christ reigns, wickedness is expelled too. If you want to build the kingdom in your town, if you want heaven to come down to earth in your city, then you must not allow unrepentant sinners to live there. For Scripture is clear that they share no part in the kingdom.

But once we understand that the local church is the witness to and manifestation of the kingdom the Bible makes more practical sense. In the kingdom, possessions are shared so that no one has to suffer want. That’s why the needs of the covenant community are met through the deacons. In the kingdom, unrepentant sinners are barred from entering. That’s why we have membership and church discipline. In the kingdom there is relational harmony and everyone is accepted by God and delights in God through his Son Jesus Christ. This is not only the goal of the church, but only in the church could we ever expect to see these realities.

Today, a friend shared a post by Doug Wilson from January that enjoyed re-reading for its bold explanation of Wilson’s vision of the Christian future.  He also discussed the relationship between the church and the kingdom:

So my proposed solution to all this, my fourth option, is to divide a believing world into Church (believing administration of Word and sacrament) and Kingdom (believing administration of bread baking, lovemaking, candlestick making, warfare, sewage treatment, etc.) The Church is the central cathedral and the Kingdom is the parish. The Kingdom may certainly be called the Church by synecdoche, just as all ancient Israel could be called Zion, just so long as we maintain a category elsewhere that keeps them clearly distinct. I want to keep this distinction sharp because I don’t ever want to have ministers of the Word too closely involved in chopping off the heads of miscreants. Wanting to do better than the Inquisition is not setting the bar too high. Whaddaya say?…

The Church is the heart of the Kingdom, but not everything in the Kingdom is Church proper, although it is “Church” in some sense. The Church is at the center, and Christendom surrounds her.

DeYoung leans towards a two-kingdom theology which (correct me if I’m wrong) tends to go with amillenialism.  Doug Wilson is a postmillennialist who expects that the gospel will transform the world before Christ’s coming.  It seems like the eschatologies of both men inform their views of the Church-Kingdom relationship.

Also, if you want to listen to a debate on eschatology, Desiring God held a good conversation (about two hours) between people with historical premillennial, postmillienial, and amillenial views, with John Piper moderating.  It’s not a bad thing to put on your MP3 player and listen two while you’re running or something.  Doug Wilson represented postmill.

UPDATE (3/9/10): I inserted the link for Wilson’s column, which I forgot to include before.

Defining “social justice”

Kevin DeYoung asks Christians to clarify what they mean when they use this term:

In A Conflict of Visions, Thomas Sowell explains the difference between the constrained and unconstrained view of justice. In the unconstrained view justice is a result so that wherever people don’t get “their fair share” or don’t have as much as others there is injustice. If Goldingay is correct, most people assume this unconstrained view when they speak of social justice. For example, the RCA (my denomination) in one of its official study materials includes a glossary which defines justice as “The fair, moral, and impartial treatment of all persons, especially in law. Includes concepts of right relationships and equitable distribution of resources.” By this definition the inequality of opportunities, income, or outcomes is considered an injustice, a situation that in and of itself is sinful, implicates all (or most) of us in society, and demands immediate redress. In the unconstrained vision, the society has a lump of resources and if they are not shared roughly equally, then we do not have social justice.

In the constrained vision, by contrast, justice is a process where people are treated fairly (the first half of the RCA definition). The goal here is not forced redistribution; no one distributed the resources in the first place and no one is wise enough to allocate them for the good of everyone. Justice, in this vision, is upheld through the rule of law, a fair court system, and equitable treatment of all persons regardless of natural diversity. This doesn’t mean that in the constrained vision we shouldn’t care for the poor or that we simply shrug our shoulders and say “oh well” when we see people struggling through life with far fewer opportunities and resources than the rest of us. The Christian must be generous and should care about suffering and the disadvantaged. But in the constrained vision, this care is a matter of compassion, charity, and love, not automatically an issue of justice.

I happen to think the constrained view of justice fits the biblical definition better. But arguing one way or the other is not the point of this post. This is only a “modest proposal” after all. I simply want Christians to be more careful and more precise with their language. We don’t all mean the same thing by social justice. So when we use the term we should explain it and take pains to demonstrate why our conception of social justice is supported by Scripture. However we use the phrase “social justice” we should be slow to insist that any Christian who disagrees with our policy solution is obviously a spiritual miscreant.

The church as cushion

Kevin DeYoung considers how churches can become cushions, focusing on comfort rather than on challenging their congregations to truly encounter God and be changed by him:

No one enters the ministry to further the status quo. Every evangelical pastor, every enthusiastic young Christian for that matter, wants to see conversions, spiritual growth, and biblical reformation where it is needed. But youthful zeal wanes. Life crashes in. Pastors get tired. Congregations fall back into old patterns.Here’s Richard Lovelace’s explanation:

Pastors gradually settle down and lose interest in being change agents in the church. An unconscious conspiracy arises between their flesh and that of their congregations. It becomes tacitly understood that the laity will give pastors special honor in the exercise of their gifts, if the pastors will agree to leave their congregations’ pre-Christian lifestyles undisturbed and do not call for the mobilization of lay gifts for the work of the kingdom. Pastors are permitted to become ministerial superstars. Their pride is fed and their congregations are permitted to remain herds of sheep in which each has cheerfully turned to his own way (quoted in C. John Miller, Outgrowing the Ingrown Church, p. 19).

The result of this compromise, argued Jack Miller, is “the church as religious cushion.” The body of Christ becomes less a living, breathing, growing, healthy organism and more a coping club, a society of mutual reinforcement, nothing but a cushion against the pains of life. Miller explains:

The religious cushioning may take a number of forms. In its liberal variety, its primary concern is to comfort suburbanites with a vision of a God who is too decent to send nice people like them to hell. In its sacerdotal form, its purpose is to tranquilize the guilt-ridden person with the religious warmth of its liturgy. Among conservatives and evangelicals, its primary mission all too often is to function as a preaching station where Christians gather to hear the gospel preached to the unconverted, to be reassured that liberals are mistaken about God and hell, and renew one’s sense of well-being without have a serious encounter with the living God (p. 26).

How does the church avoid being nothing but a religious cushion? Good preaching. Strong leadership. Earnest repentance. Heartfelt prayer. Biblical integrity. All of these are essential. And in and through them must be an awareness of sin and a delight in the Savior.